The dinner hour was long past when he jingled along the trail past his father's place. On sudden impulse he turned the Moose into the yard. Judith opened the door. She was in sweater and riding-skirt. Her black hair was bundled up under a round beaver cap under which her bright beauty glowed in a way to lift a far less interested heart than Doug's.

"Hello, Douglas!"

"Hello, Judith! Where are you going?"

"Just out to jump the little wild mare. Where have you been?"

"Down to the post-office. I saw Dad heading for Charleton's."

"Yes, I'm alone. Mother went over to Grandma's. The old lady is ailing."

Douglas jumped from the saddle. "You haven't mentioned it, but, thanks, I will come in. Is there any grub in the house? I haven't had dinner yet."

Judith laughed. "I was expecting that! I just finished my own. Come along!"

Douglas ate his dinner while Judith watched with speculative eyes.

"Peter is a funny old duck," she said finally.

"Funny? How?"

"O, he's so lonely and so cross and such good company and so kind! I'd like to have known him when he was young."

Douglas looked at her closely. "Jude, could you get to care for Peter if you thought he cared for you?"

"Who, me? Peter? What's the matter with you, Doug? Why, Peter is as old as Dad!"

"What difference does that make?"

"It wouldn't make any difference if I cared for him," admitted Judith, tapping thoughtfully on the tablecloth with slim brown fingers.

"But do you care for him, Judith?" insisted Douglas.

Judith's fine lips twisted contemptuously. "What an idiot you are, Doug!"

"Do you, hang it? Answer me, Jude!"

"No! No! No! Does that satisfy you?"

"Well, partially. Guess I'll have to ask Inez the same question."

Judith smiled and shrugged her shoulders. Douglas went on.

"I'll bet if you could get the truth out of Inez, Judith, you'd find her suffering torments because she can't marry."

"Can't marry? Why can't Inez marry?" demanded Judith belligerently.

"Because no decent man would marry her," returned Douglas flatly.

Judith laughed. "You poor old male, you! Will you kindly tell me what man in this valley you consider more decent than Inez?"

"I'm decent," said Douglas, flushing, but not the less firmly.

Judith's eyes softened. "You've kept that promise, Doug?"

"Yes," briefly. "And I wouldn't have a woman like Inez if she was as beautiful as Cleopatra and as rich as Hetty Green!"

"Well," airily, "that eliminates you, of course. But let me warn you, Douglas, that if Inez Rodman really loved a man and wanted to marry him, he'd have about as much chance as a coyote used to have when Sister was young enough to run them. Only, if Inez ever does love a man, she won't marry him. She'll keep herself a mystery to him. 'And forever would he love and she be fair.'"

"What's that you're quoting?" asked Douglas.

Judith, her eyes on the window through which shouldered the great flank of Dead Line Peak, repeated the immortal lines. When she had finished, Douglas sighed.

"It's very beautiful!" he said. "But life isn't a procession round a Grecian Urn. It's hard riding from start to finish. And it's a poor sport that won't accept that fact and ride according to the rules. Marriage is one of the rules. I believe in it."

Judith walked slowly round the table and put a hand on either shoulder. There was a baffling light in her splendid gray eyes as she said, "Douglas, do you think for a minute that if I told you I loved you madly, I couldn't persuade you not to marry me?"

Her touch was flame. Douglas drew a long, uncertain breath.

"If you said that you loved me madly, you could do almost anything with me, I suppose. The only thing that keeps me steady is believing that you don't love me."

Judith smiled curiously. Douglas lifted her hands from his shoulders. "Don't torture me, Jude," he said, his voice husky and his fingers uncertain, as he lighted a cigarette.

"I wouldn't torture you, any more than I'd torture myself," replied Judith.

She leaned against the window-frame, looking out at the serenity of the mountain.

"Life," she said suddenly, "is like climbing to the top of Falkner's Peak. Terribly difficult and frightfully wearing, but O, what marvelous views as you reach shoulder after shoulder! Inez is beginning to find life rather a dreary kind of mess. But not I! The Lord knows, my life looks stupid to every one but me, and the Lord knows, I'm restless and unhappy. But I never stop thinking for a minute that it's great, just great to be alive and—and alive."

Douglas smiled a little uncertainly. "Do you ever think twice the same way, Jude?"

"Once in a while! In fact, I'm getting that way more and more. You'll see! I'm going to get me educated, Douglas, and find me a real job. See if I don't!"

Douglas put on his gloves. "I couldn't be any prouder of you, Judith, if you had all the education in the world. Don't forget to come up on Sunday."

"I suppose I'll have to lend my support," said Judith. "But I still think you are a fool."

"You can think me all the fools you want to, if you'll just keep backing me," replied Douglas, striding out to the whinnying Moose.

He found old Johnny and the preacher on terms of easy friendship. Johnny was inclined to be patronizing but Douglas caught the twinkle in Fowler's eyes and made no attempt to control Johnny's manners.

It was not until nearly bed time that Doug missed Prince. The old dog was gradually giving up the solitary coyote hunts he had taken in his younger days and, contrary too, to his earlier habits, he now liked to sleep indoors. He was usually shivering on the doorstep waiting for a chance to scramble under the stove when Doug went out to look at the stock for the night.

But to-night he was not there, nor did his short bark come in response to Doug's whistling. Old Johnny and the preacher came to the door.

"Stop your whistling and listen, Douglas," suggested Fowler.

Douglas obeyed, and faintly on the frosty air sounded the reiterated yelps of a dog.

"That's Prince and he's in trouble!" exclaimed Doug.

"He's up on the shoulder of Lost Chief, I depone," said Johnny.

"I'll go up there." Douglas took his rifle from behind the door and hurried out to the corral. The two men followed him, and by the time Doug had buckled on his spurs, they had saddled his horse.

"Either he's got into a trap or he's tackled something too big for him," said Douglas; "and it's up to me to look out for my pal."

The moon had risen and the snow was very light. Prince continued to yelp and it was not long before Douglas found the dog's tracks and was able to follow them without difficulty. They led up to the tree line on the east flank of Lost Chief Peak. The yelps appeared to come from not far within the border of pines.

Douglas chuckled. "He sure has bitten off more than he can chew this time! I'll have to tell that old dog that—"

A revolver shot interrupted his thoughts. The yelps abruptly ceased. Douglas spurred his horse and in a moment saw the figure of a man standing beside an outcropping rock. It was Charleton Falkner. Douglas threw himself from his horse, Prince, his paw in a trap, lay motionless on the ground beside the badly mangled body of a wolverine. Charleton's face in the moonlight was coolly vindictive.

"I'll teach a dog to spoil a pelt for me!" he said. "He didn't realize there were two traps here."

"But that was my dog, Prince!" exclaimed Doug.

"I don't care if it was the Almighty's dog! He can't rob my traps if I know it!" snarled Charleton.

Douglas advanced slowly. "You don't seem to get the idea, Charleton. That was my old dog that grew up with me—the faithfulest little chap in Lost Chief. I'd have paid you for the pelt and you know it. What did you shoot him for?"

Charleton's jaws worked. "I'll show you and Scott and the whole valley that my traps and my hunts are not to be interfered with!"

"Still you don't get the idea," Douglas was now not an arm's-length from Charleton. "You can't shoot a man's dog, at least this man's dog and go unpunished. You and Dad have bullied this valley long enough, Charleton. Put up your hands and take your punishment."

He struck the six-shooter from Charleton's hand and the battle was joined. Douglas' only advantage over his adversary was in point of youth, for Charleton was as lean and powerful as a gorilla. But youth was a powerful ally and eventually it was Charleton who lay in the snow, blinking at the moon. Douglas, panting and still so angry that it was difficult for him not to kick Charleton where he lay, released Prince's paw and threw the familiar gray body across the saddle. Then he mounted, laying Prince across his knees.

Charleton sat up slowly.

"That licking wasn't all for poor old Prince," said Douglas. "Part of it was for the kid whose mind you deliberately tried to poison, and part of it is for Inez. You were the first man, you boasted to me, who ever went to Rodman's. And part of it's for the loneliness you've made in Lost Chief. What have you got to say—huh?"

Charleton rose. "Nice young buck you are to attack a man old enough to be your father! This is what I get for my kindness to you. This is a bad night's work for you, you young whelp!"

Douglas, one hand on his old dog's stiffening shoulder, bit back his resurging wrath and tapped his horse with the spurs. Fowler and Old Johnny came out to meet him. He gave Prince to Johnny and then dismounted.

"Charleton shot my dog!" he said.

"What shall I do with him?" asked Johnny.

"Shut him up in the feed shed and I'll bury him in the morning." Douglas stalked into the house, where the two others shortly followed him. They looked at his face and for a moment even old Johnny hesitated to speak. In spite of his cold ride, Doug's face was deadly white, his lips worked, and his eyes were dark with feeling. He took off his spurs slowly, and hung them carefully on their nail. Then he sat down on his bunk and stared at the preacher.

"What happened, Douglas?" asked Fowler.

"Prince evidently tackled a wolverine in one of Charleton's traps and I'm not so sure either but it might have been Scott's. Anyhow he surprised some kind of a deal Charleton was trying to put over. Then he got his paw in a free trap and started yelping. Charleton got to him before I did and shot him."

"What was he doing riding his traps at this hour?" asked the preacher.

"I don't know. I loved that dog and so did Jude. It will make her sick when she hears. He was good for two or three years more and he should have died like a good rancher, right at home, here."

"What did you say to Charleton?"

"I said what I thought beside knocking him down."

Fowler said nothing more but he put his hand on Doug's knee. Doug cleared his throat and rose ostensibly to put a stick of wood in the stove.

Old Johnny picked up the rifle and started for the door.

"Where are you going, Johnny?" asked Douglas, huskily.

"I'm going to watch. Charleton he ain't never going to stop now till he fixes you. He's got to get me first. Maybe I ain't as smart as Prince was but I depone I'll do my best."

Douglas laughed a little brokenly. He put his arm around old Johnny's shoulder and with his free hand took the gun.

"Don't you worry about me, Johnny. Your job is the church and the preacher and you remember you promised not to shoot until you told me about it."

"That's right," exclaimed the preacher. "And now I suggest that you let me read a chapter from the Bible and that we then get to bed."

Johnny looked at Douglas in embarrassment, but Douglas nodded and his old guard sat down beside him on the bunk with a contented sigh.

"'I am the true vine and my father is the husband-man.—As the Father hath loved me so have I loved you: continue ye in my love.—This is my commandment, that ye love one another, as I have loved you.—Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.'" Fowler closed the book and bowed his head over it. "O God," he prayed, "give us patience and kindness and understanding. Amen."

He rose then and Douglas, vaguely comforted by the sympathy of the two old men, went to bed and to sleep. It had been a day of such stress as even his young years of mental conflicts had seldom endured.

The next day, when Douglas went down to the Spencer ranch to borrow the paraphernalia for dehorning, his father beckoned him mysteriously into the cowshed. John had been surly for six months and Douglas was surprised to hear the note of gratification in his voice.

"What have you been doing to Charleton, Doug?"

"What does he say I've been doing?" asked Douglas, picking the snow out of his spurs.

"He says you knocked him down. He came in here last night breathing fire."

"Did he say why I knocked him down?"

"Yes. Because he wouldn't let your dog rob his traps."

"Prince got after a wolverine in his or Scott's traps and Charleton shot the old pup. He'd better be thankful I didn't boot him all the way home."

Douglas' face was growing white again. John looked at his tall son with a mixture of admiration and bewilderment in his eyes.

"By the Great Sitting Bull, Doug, I can't understand you! Here you go for six months making a blank sissy of yourself over a sky pilot and then you give the most dangerous man in the Valley the gol-dingest mauling and beating he ever had in his life! Why, even I won't go up against Charleton. He's a bad man!"

"He's a bag of wind!" said Douglas contemptuously. "I found that out years ago when his boy was born. Does Jude know?"

"No; she was asleep and he stayed in the kitchen with me and washed up. But don't think you've finished with him. He's a mean man, Douglas."

"Yes, he's mean enough. On the other hand, Charleton knows I've got his number and he'll let me alone. I'm not worrying about him. That guy can't even keep his temper. Loan me the tar-pot, will you, and the searing-iron."

John suddenly laughed. Douglas grinned faintly, then said, "I know now how Jude felt when you shot that little old Swift horse."

"I suppose if you'd been big enough, you'd have treated me as you did Charleton," said John cheerfully.

"I sure would have tried to," replied Douglas. "Where's Jude?"

"Working on the little wild mare in the corral."

Douglas nodded to his father and went in search of Judith. She nodded gaily from the saddle.

"Why so sober, old-timer?"

"Overwork!" exclaimed Douglas. "Jude, will you come up and help me with the handful of steers I want to dehorn?"

"What's the matter with Old Gentlemen's Home?" asked Judith with her impish smile.

"They are taken up with reforming each other," replied Douglas; adding more seriously, "they are too old to be much help with the rope, Jude."

"I know," she nodded. "I'll come right along."

It was not until they had nearly reached Doug's corral that he found courage to tell her about the death of Prince. She said nothing, for a moment, but she brought the mare up close to the Moose and laid her hand on Douglas' knee.

"Dear old boy!" she said. "I know!" Then she sobbed for a moment against his shoulder. But when he would have put his arm about her she straightened herself and said, "But weren't you glad you were strong enough to thrash him!"

"Yes!" replied Douglas.

They said no more about it, but after the dehorning was done, Douglas saw Judith stand for a long time beside the chapel. He knew how her heart was aching, for she too was a lover of dogs.



CHAPTER XIV

THE BATTLE OF THE BULLS

"The free plains were wonderful, but Judith's hand on my bit is more wonderful."

—The Little Wild Mare.

Douglas felt somehow, after this day, that Judith was nearer to him. Not that she changed in her manner at all, but there was an indefinable something about her that gave him hope: hope strong enough at least to put up a creditable struggle with the despair that was forever creeping upon him at unguarded moments.

He slept in the chapel on Saturday night, just to make sure that no mischief was done under cover of the darkness. And on Sunday, Mr. Fowler preached an uninterrupted sermon. Scott was present, giving apparently an undivided ear to the preacher's discourse. Charleton was there, too. He ignored Douglas entirely. He had probably told no one of his trouble with Douglas and, knowing Douglas, he apparently felt that Lost Chief would remain in ignorance of the fight. So his saturnine face was as serenely insolent as ever, barring the remains of a very black eye.

Considered from an entirely detached point of view, the sermon was a thing of exceeding beauty. Inez should have been satisfied. The old preacher had a fine voice and he spoke without notes. Many a noted interpreter of the gospel might have envied him his control of voice and language.

The text was one of the most intriguing in the Bible. "Jesus said, I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world seeth me no more. But ye see me. Because I live, ye shall live also." Around about this, Mr. Fowler wove picture after picture of passionate faith in an hereafter. He told of the death of his own father, who with the death-rattle in his throat had sat erect in his bed crying, "O Christ, I see your face at last!"

He told of hardened criminals who had heard God's voice in their dreams. He told of children, who like little Samuel had been called by the Almighty in a voice as articulate as that of their own fathers. He told of the authenticity of the Biblical history of Christ and of the scientific explanations of Christ's miracles. He told of the faith of the ancestors of the people of Lost Chief, a faith which had led them across the Atlantic and through those first terrible years on the bleak New England shores. He concluded with a prayer for the return of the sheep to the fold, a prayer delivered with tears pouring down his weather-beaten cheeks, a prayer delivered in anguish of spirit and in a voice of heart-moving sincerity.

At the end, he sank into his chair by the table and covered his eyes with his shaking hand. Lost Chief sat silent for a moment, then Grandma Brown said in a quavering voice, "Let us sing Rock of Ages." But only she knew the words, and after a single verse she stopped, in some embarrassment.

Charleton coughed, yawned and rose. The little congregation followed him out into the yard, where horses and dogs were milling the half-melted snow into yellow muck.

"Well, Grandma," asked Charleton as he helped the old lady into her saddle, "what did you think of the sermon?"

"A pretty good sermon!" replied Grandma. "Made me feel like a girl again."

"My gawd, Grandma," exclaimed Charleton, "do you mean to say that an old Indian fighter like you swallowed that stuff!"

"I was believing that stuff before you were born, Charleton! If Fowler is going to keep this pace up, I'll say I'm sorry I ever called him a sissy. What did you think of it, Peter?"

Peter was leaning thoughtfully against his horse. "It was interesting. Ethics, as such, are too cold to interest most folks. So we sugar-coat 'em with flowery speech and sleight-of-hand and try to give 'em authority with a big threat. Then some hard-head like Charleton says, because the sugar-coating is silly, that there is nothing to ethics. Which is where he talks like a fool."

He whistled to Sister and trotted homeward. There was considerable elation in Doug's cabin that evening. The preacher said little but old Johnny was in fine fettle.

"Guess we showed 'em!" he said, frying the bacon with a skilled hand. "I bet we had words in that sermon none of 'em ever dreamed of before. You'd ought to use 'gregus,' Mr. Fowler. It's a hard word and so's depone. I told Grandma to come up Sunday and we'd have words looked out that would sure twist her gullet to say."

Mr. Fowler was seized with a sudden coughing fit from which he merged into violent laughter.

"What did your sister say?" he asked when he found his voice.

"She told me not to go any crazier than I already was, and I deponed to her how Doug felt about me, and she went home."

The sermon had indeed gone so well and the week that followed was so peaceful that Douglas did not sleep in the chapel on the following Saturday night. When Mr. Fowler unlocked the door on Sunday morning, a skunk fled from under the pulpit out into the aspens, and there was no service that day.

On the next Sunday, Charleton gave an all-day dance in the post-office hall and only half a dozen of the older people appeared at the chapel, to listen to a sermon on the Resurrection. He repeated the dance for three Sundays in succession and Douglas was in despair. Old Johnny was deeply wrought up over Douglas' state of mind, and one Saturday night he disappeared, returning at dawn. On that Sunday it was found that the stove in the dance-hall had disappeared and a check was put upon Charleton's competition.

And still, with no dances to rival the sermons, the attendance at the log chapel grew smaller and smaller. The lack of interest that was growing, now that the Valley's first curiosity had been satisfied, was more deadly than open warfare. Douglas saw clearly enough that the sermons were dull and he spent evening after evening sounding Fowler's mind to its depths in the endeavor to find some angle in it that would tempt Lost Chief into the chapel.

It was a good mind, that of this preacher, stored with a very fair amount of classical learning and packed with stories of western adventure. But classical lore had no appeal for modern-minded Lost Chief and Mr. Fowler's adventure could be surpassed by any man in the Valley.

Judith treated the sermons with open scorn. "No, indeed; I won't come up to the chapel," she replied to Doug's appeal. "Why should I suffer when I don't have to? If it would help you—! But it wouldn't! The sooner you learn what a fool the old sky pilot is, the better. Or, I tell you, Douglas! You preach the next sermon and I promise to come and bring the crowd."

Douglas grinned feebly. "I value my life," he answered.

Mary Spencer, who was listening to the conversation which took place in her kitchen, now made a suggestion.

"Why don't you feed 'em, Doug? Announce a series of fifty-cent dinners up at the chapel and while the folks eat, let Mr. Fowler preach."

Douglas laughed delightedly. "That's a 'gregus' idea! I'll do it. I'll begin this Sunday with a venison dinner!"

Mary nodded. "You get the food together and there are three or four of us women who would be glad to cook it for you."

"You are a real friend, Mother!" exclaimed Douglas. "I believe you've solved my problem!"

And so, in spite of Mr. Fowler's protest, a venison dinner was announced for Sunday and received by the Valley in a spirit of hilarious enthusiasm. The preacher refused to deliver the sermon while the meal was in progress, but it was such a gustatory success that at its close, the guests sat in complete docility through a sermon on future punishment. It was a good sermon, quite as modern in most aspects as Lost Chief. Douglas had seen to that. Mr. Fowler had reached the closing sentence when a bull bellowed outside and the door opened disclosing Elijah Nelson, with his horse close behind him. The preacher paused.

"Excuse me!" exclaimed Nelson. "I thought this was just a dinner!"

He was a big man, perhaps fifty years of age, with a smooth-shaven ruddy face. He wore a sheepskin vest over his corduroy coat, and one of the small boys bleated. Grandma Brown promptly smacked him on the mouth.

"Will you come in and eat?" asked Fowler.

"No, thank you," replied the Mormon; adding with a determined thrust of his lower jaw, "I want Scott Parsons to come out. I won't disturb the rest of you."

"What do you want of me?" demanded Scott from his place between Judith and Inez.

"Come outside and I'll tell you."

Scott grunted derisively. "It sure-gawd has got to be something more than that to win me out of this position. I'm the envy of Lost Chief, old sheep-man!"

There was a general laugh.

"Go on out and see what he wants, Scott," said Peter.

Scott sighed and detached himself. The congregation waited a moment; then curiosity had its own way and the chapel emptied itself into the yard. Several Mormons were sitting their horses before the line of quivering aspens that bound the little clearing. A big red bull was tied to the corral fence. Elijah Nelson remained on the doorstep.

"Well," he began, "since you are all out here, I'll say to all of you what I rode down here to say to Scott Parsons, he and anybody that may be helping him are hereby served notice that they've got to keep out of Mormon Valley. We are decent, God-fearing Americans, and we are not going to stand being robbed any more."

"How do you mean, being robbed?" asked Peter Knight.

"Well, I brought this along as a sample," replied Elijah. "Some five years or so ago, I had some cattle grazing on Lost Chief and somebody ran off a dozen head, this bull among the lot. Anybody that can't do a better job of rebranding than this, ought to try another line of business."

There was an interested craning of necks toward the huge brand offered in evidence; then every one looked at Scott. Scott said nothing, and Elijah went on.

"That fellow Parsons patrolled Mormon Creek, that heads up at Lost Chief Springs, all summer. He built a brush dam and threw the water out of our creek into his own ditch, whenever he felt like it. I didn't want to start a fight going. That's not a Mormon's business. We are peaceful folks, homesteading the wilderness. It was a wet summer and we managed to get enough water out of White Horse Creek to take care of us. But right is right and wrong is wrong and we aren't going to stand that next summer. Last week, a coyote was fastened into my chicken run; and last night a mountain lion with a trap hanging to his leg got into my corral, where I had two foals, and he killed them before I could get out. The trap had Scott Parsons' name cut onto it. I don't know who is helping him, if any, but I'm here with my neighbors to serve notice that it's got to stop. I see you've got a preacher here now. I begin to have hopes you may become peaceable yet."

A sudden gust of laughter swept Lost Chief.

"Well, Scott," asked Peter, "what have you got to say?"

"Me?" asked Scott. "I'm not a preacher or a Mormon. I haven't got the gift of gab. Charleton is a good talker. Let him say something."

"All right, old trapper," said Charleton obligingly. He grinned at Inez and began:

"Yet, ah, that Spring should vanish with the Rose, That Youth's sweet-scented manuscript should close,—"

Elijah Nelson interrupted. "Is this the way you are going to answer a decent protest against injustice? Is this—"

"Wait now!" cried Grandma Brown. "Don't get all prodded up. Scott, you give this man a straight answer."

"Very well, Grandma; I'll do that little thing for you," drawled Scott. "Nelson, you and the rest of you Mormons and Jack-Mormons go plumb to hell, but leave my bull behind."

One of Nelson's neighbors rose in his stirrups and shook his fist at Scott. "You dogy-faced Gentile! I've got you marked! You are the one who ran our cattle off Lost Peak five years ago, and we know who helped you."

"Well, I think you Mormons had better get back to your plural wives!" cried John Spencer. "We've had about enough of this."

"Judith," said Douglas, "you take your mother and go home."

Judith turned bright eyes toward him. "Think I'm going to run away? No sir!"

Elijah's neighbor laid his gun across his own arm. "Say that again, Spencer," he suggested, "unless you aren't willing to fight for your daughter!"

Mr. Fowler sprang up beside Nelson on the doorstep. "I beg of you all to disperse to your homes and don't desecrate the Sabbath by such a scene as this."

"O, don't talk like a fool, Fowler!" exclaimed Grandma Brown. At this moment her little grandson came roaring lustily up the trail. He was covered with muck and snow.

"Judith's bull has got away from us kids and he's headed this way!"

"What were you doing with him?" shrieked Grandma,

"We was going to bring him up here and put him in the church like Scott paid us for. And he said—"

But what the child intended to divulge was not to be known, for there was a bellow from the thickest of blue spruce and Sioux, with various chains and ropes dangling from his neck and legs, charged into the clearing. There was a sudden wild scattering of human beings. Judith whistled shrilly, but Sioux had been goaded beyond her control.

"Let me get my rope!" she cried.

"Hold up!" shouted Charleton. "Something's going to happen!"

The Mormon's bull had broken his halter and had turned to meet the on-coming Sioux. Sioux's bloodshot eyes fell on the stranger, and instantly the battle was joined. Snow flew. The buck fence crashed. The bulls bellowed, locked horns, retreated, charged, slipped, fell, rose again with a rapidity only equalled by the ferocity of the attack.

"They'll kill each other if they aren't stopped!" cried Fowler. "Stop them, Douglas! O God, what a place! What a place!"

"What a fight, you mean!" laughed Charleton. "I put up ten dollars on Sioux."

"Take you!" said Scott.

"If Spencer's bull kills mine, he'll pay for it!" cried Nelson.

"If they work into the corral," shouted Douglas, "some of you help me put up the fence again and we'll have them!"

"Well, but don't stop the fight." Young Jeff gesticulated excitedly. "I'm going to put up ten on Sioux!"

"Take you!" said Scott.

Nelson's bull ripped Sioux's flank for six inches and blood spurted to the ground. Both the great heads were undistinguishable masses of blood. Their hot breath hung frozen in the air. The western sun turned all the world beneath the aspens to crimson. The betting became more general and more hectic as the battle waxed more furious. The Mormons forgot their grievance for the moment and backed their bull freely.

Suddenly Sioux freed himself, retreated and charged with the full force of his two thousand pounds. He caught Nelson's bull on the fore shoulder. The visitor slid sideways, stumbled to his knees and rose, shaking the blood from his eyes. He gave a look at Sioux, who was preparing to charge again, and turning he fled along the trail toward Scott's ranch, uttering as he went the longdrawn and continuous bellow of the defeated bull.

Douglas, Judith, and John Spencer immediately roped Sioux. Scott spurred his horse across the trail and drew his gun. "Get back!" he said to two of the Mormons. "That's my bull!"

"No gun-play, Scott!" called Peter.

There was a sudden exodus of women and children down the home trail, but Judith continued talking soothingly to her bull.

Scott did not heed the postmaster. He went on, to the Mormons. "You blank-blanks have trimmed me out of my year's profits! I'm not going to lose the bull too!"

"Judith Spencer!" shouted Elijah Nelson, turning his horse toward Judith and her pet, "is that Scott Parsons' bull?"

There was sudden silence, broken only by the distant bellow of the retreating warrior. Judith sat very erect on Buster, her beaver cap on the back of her head, her wide gray eyes brilliant. She looked at Scott. His hard handsome face was expressionless. Douglas ran across the yard and reached up to tap Elijah Nelson on the chest.

"Don't drag a woman into this, you bastard American, you! I was up there that summer running your cattle and I lost every one of them, if you want to know, and there was no woman helping me out, either. Now, what are you going to do about that?"

Nelson lifted his hand.

"Wait a minute!" drawled Charleton.. "It sure-gawd is your bull, Nelson. Scott ran it up to Mountain City, rebranded it there, and brought it back here in the spring."

"Why, you traitor!" roared Scott. "You staged the whole play, and I'll bet you staged this with your traps."

"I never let a debt go unpaid," chuckled Charleton.

"Aw, come off, Scott!" cried John Spencer. "Give them the bull and send them home. We are sick of your rows in this valley!"

Scott forgot that he was guarding the trail. He spurred his horse furiously toward John, flourishing his six-shooter. The two Mormons slipped quickly away.

"If you think you can sacrifice me for Jude, John Spencer!" cried Scott. He got no farther, for Douglas, now on the Moose, cracked him on the right wrist with the butt of his own gun. At the same time, Peter knocked John's arm into the air. Scott's weapon dropped into the snow.

"Now," said Douglas with his quiet grin, "this venison dinner party of mine is announced as over. You Mormons take yourselves and your dogs off my place. Frank," to the sheriff, who had been an amused spectator up to this point, "come over here and soothe Scott. He's a right nervous cowman to-day. Dad, you take Jude home."

Frank rode slowly over to take Scott's bridle.

"Well," said Peter, "looks like our host wants to get rid of us. Come on, Charleton."

"I'll get you later, Charleton!" shouted Scott.

"But how about—" began Nelson.

Douglas turned in his saddle and faced the older man. His young eyes suddenly looked grim and hard. "Nelson, you have seen what Lost Chief is like to-day. We have no fear and we have no friends and we have no God. But Lost Chief is ours and we intend to keep it. No Mormon is welcome. Don't use our trails or our range or our herd waters. Now, go!"

"Those are hard words, such as a man can't afford to speak to a neighbor," said Elijah, turning his horse slowly.

Douglas did not reply, and not at all reluctantly the visitors spurred up the drifted trail.

"Come on, Judith!" John nodded to the girl.

"I'm going to stay and doctor Sioux up," she said.

"Go on home, Judith," urged Douglas.

"I'll take care of the bull for you," said old Johnny, who had not spoken a word during the entire episode.

"Nobody can touch him in the state he's in but me. You know that!" declared Judith.

"Judith," repeated Douglas, "you go home."

"Why?" demanded the girl.

"You know why, Judith. Go on with Dad."

Judith set her lips, and slowly, very slowly spurred Buster after John's horse. Not until she was out of earshot did Douglas say to Scott:

"Scott, let's you and me settle our differences once and for all." It was dark now and cold. "You gather up that gun, Johnny, and we'll go into the cabin where it's warm."

"I'll not go near your house!" Scott spoke gruffly.

"Look here, Scott! Don't be a grouch! Let's see if we can't get together."

"Get together? What for? Some of this pious stuff, I suppose!"

"No, it's not! It's just common sense. We both plan to spend our lives in this valley. Why fight all the time?"

"You can bet I do plan to spend my life in this valley. Neither you nor Charleton can run me out. Lost Chief is as much mine as it is yours. Don't you ever get it into that thick head of yours that you can be Big Chief here. I am going to have a finger in this pie myself."

"Aw, draw it mild, Scott!" protested the sheriff. "Nobody's afraid of your threats. Doug's advice is good. Come out of your grouch and join the crowd."

"Whose crowd? Doug's? I didn't know he had one except for idiots," sneered Scott.

"No," said Douglas cheerfully, "we don't want any idiots in our crowd. We want good friends and watchmen, hey, Johnny? Come on in, Scott. The going is pretty good."

Scott uttered an oath. Douglas, a straight, rather tense figure in the dusk, did not speak again for a long moment; then he said quietly, "All right, Scott! I'm through. Get off my place, quick!"

He dismounted and unsaddled the Moose. Scott rode off at a gallop.

"Want any help with the bull, Doug?" asked Frank Day.

"No, thanks! We'll get him into the stable and then look him over. Get the lantern, will you, Johnny?"

"Then I'll be riding," said the sheriff. "My chores should have been done an hour ago," and he jingled down the trail.

It was not difficult to lead Sioux into the little log cow stable. But here all progress ceased. The bull became so frantic whenever they tried to examine his wounds that after a prolonged struggle they left him. Johnny and Douglas finished the chores while the preacher went into the cabin and got supper. They sat long over the meal. Old Johnny was deeply excited. A fight always upset his poor old tangled nerves. Douglas finally suggested that he take the lantern and clean up after the dinner; and the old man, who loved to potter about the chapel almost as much as did the preacher, acquiesced enthusiastically.

After he had gone, Fowler said, "Douglas, that little chap is going to do some one bodily harm if we aren't careful. He is getting fanatically devoted to you. I had to keep my hand on his arm all the afternoon."

"The poor old dogy!" Doug shook his head. "We'll keep the guns away from him, and then he won't get into trouble. I'm more bothered about you and Scott than I am about me and Johnny, though!"

"Scott means mischief," said the preacher.

Douglas nodded. "I don't want you to go anywhere without me. He is plenty smart enough to know that the best way to get me is through you—or Judith!"

"Don't worry about me, Douglas. I heard Bryan say once, 'My body is covered with the callouses of defeat. No one can hurt me.' I am like Bryan. No one can hurt me. And I would guess that Judith can look out for herself."

Douglas grunted. The two sat staring at the fire in a silence that was not broken until Judith called from without, "Douglas, I want to see Sioux!"

Douglas took up the lantern and, followed by Fowler, went out. Judith stood beside Buster.

"You give me the lantern, Doug, and neither of you follow me. I can manage him best alone." She was not gone long. "He's not as bad off as I feared," she said when she returned. "I'll let him feed and rest for another hour, then I'll take him down home where I can tend to him right."

"Then let's go in out of the cold," suggested Fowler.

When they were established around the stove, Judith asked, "How did you and Scott get along, Douglas?"

Douglas told her of the conversation. Judith looked serious.

"You see, Doug, Dad keeps Scott sore all the time about me. I don't think he'd be half so ugly to you if it were not for that."

"O yes, he would!" replied Douglas. "Scott and I were born to fight with each other, just like old Prince and Charleton's Nero. We can't help our backs bristling when we see each other."

"Inez could make Scott behave if she cared anything about it. Scott isn't in love with her, but she has a lot of influence over him, like she has over the other men in this valley." Judith watched her hunting-boots steam against the hearth.

"She has too much influence over you, Judith," said Mr. Fowler.

"She's my friend," returned Judith briefly.

"Your friend!" cried Fowler. "Your friend! Do you realize what you are saying?"

"Yes, I certainly do, and I don't want a lecture about it either." Judith sat erect.

Mr. Fowler leaned forward, his eyes glowing with indignation. "I've swallowed all I can swallow about Inez Rodman. I allowed Douglas to bring her to the table and I ate with her though my gore rose in my throat. Because I felt that my only chance to win the confidence of Lost Chief was to countenance for a time that which cannot be countenanced. But I am through. How long do you think you can be a friend to Inez, Judith, and not become like her?"

Judith jumped to her feet. "O, I am so sick of this kind of thing!" she cried.

"Fowler is dead right and you know it, Judith," said Douglas.

"You don't dare to say these things to her face!" Judith's eyes were full of the tears of anger.

"I'd just as soon," Douglas grinned.

"I'm going to tell her what I think of her and what she is doing to the youth of Lost Chief," stated Mr. Fowler.

"She's not a bit worse for Lost Chief than Charleton Falkner," exclaimed Judith. "And you don't pick on him!"

"He couldn't be as bad as Inez," insisted the preacher. "There is nothing so bad for a community as her kind of a woman."

"That just isn't so, Mr. Fowler," protested Douglas. "Charleton is worse than Inez ever thought of being. All I'm complaining about is her influence on Judith."

"You both talk as if I had no mind of my own!" Judith said indignantly. "If you knew the temptations I'd withstood, you'd not be so free with your comments about me. And if all I'm going to get when I come up here is criticism, I'm not coming any more. Don't you follow me, Douglas!" and Judith, in her short khaki suit, swept out of the cabin with a grace and dignity that would have done credit to a velvet train.

The preacher was deeply perturbed. He rose and paced the floor. "Douglas, I've tried to play this thing your way. But now I am through compromising. There can be no compromise with God. I'm no longer going to keep silence when events like those this afternoon take place. Undoubtedly my stay in Lost Chief will be short. But while I'm here I am going to stand openly and vehemently for the ten commandments."

Douglas tilted his chair back, folded his arms on his chest, and dropped his chin. "Something's wrong with your religion," he said.

"Nothing is wrong with my religion," retorted the preacher. "But Lost Chief is more wrong than most places. It's a transplanted New England community, and people who come from Puritan stock can't get along without God. They are worse than any one else without Him."

"I'm sick of worrying about it!" cried Douglas irritably.

"Do you mean you are sick of the fight? That you are going to let Inez have Judith?"

Douglas straightened up. "No, by God! Not if I have to shoot Inez! You go ahead and preach your own way. I'll see that you are not hurt."

And this was his last word on the subject that night.



CHAPTER XV

THE FLAME IN THE VALLEY

"The coyote is a coward, so his bite is the nastiest."

—Old Sister, the dog.

The next day when Douglas went down to the ranch to help out with a day's work for which John had asked him, Judith obviously avoided him. Douglas made no attempt to enforce a tte—tte until mid-afternoon. Then he followed Jude into the empty cow stable.

"Jude, I can't bear to have you think I'm not fair about Inez. If that's what you are sore about."

Judith laid carefully back the eggs she had taken out of the manger. Her face was set when she turned to him. "It doesn't matter much, I suppose, whether you are fair to Inez or not. She can take care of herself. What I'm angry about is your being so stupid with me, always picking at me about the things that don't count and so wrapped up in your own ideas that you can't see what I really need, and why I am so terribly restless."

Douglas leaned against the door-post, his face eager, his breath a little quickened. Now, at last, perhaps he was to win past the threshold and gaze upon Judith's inner solitude. But he would not crowd her.

"What is it that makes you so restless, Judith?" he asked gently.

"Well, it certainly isn't lack of religion and it certainly isn't lack of marrying," she retorted. "Those are the only suggestions you've ever been able to make about my state of mind."

"But, you see," Doug's voice was still gentle, "I don't even know what your state of mind is! Sometimes you tell me you find life a bitter disappointment. Sometimes you find it very beautiful. Sometimes you want to spend all your days in Lost Chief. Sometimes you must sell your heart's blood to get away from it. All that I really know about your state of mind is that you are lonely and uneasy, like me."

Judith watched him with less perhaps of anger than of resentment in her deep gray eyes.

"It's the unfairness of it! The utter unfairness of life to women!" she burst out. "Don't you see?"

Douglas shook his head. "How can I see? You are very beautiful. You have the strength of a fine boy. You have a splendid mind. You have a very special gift in handling animals. You are gay and brave-hearted and lovable. Why in the world should I feel that life isn't fair to you?"

"Don't you see?" wringing her hands together. "I have all that, and no chance to use any of it so that it's put to any sort of big use at all. I'm buried alive!"

"Oh!" Douglas gasped. He had indeed seen Judith's trouble. All the vital beauty, the splendid talents—was marriage to him a big use of them? "Oh!" he repeated. He brushed his hand across his eyes. "God! Judith," he muttered, "what can I do?"

"I don't know," she said, "but at least you can stop trying to thrust old Fowler down my throat. As for Inez, I judge Inez a good deal more exactly than you do and in many ways more harshly. But what I do insist on is that no man in Lost Chief is fit to judge her."

Judith again picked up the eggs, and went out.

Douglas put in the rest of the week placing his traps up the canyon, and purposely avoided talking with Fowler about his next sermon. He was not surprised, however, when he read the announcement which the preacher gave him to tack up on the post-office door. The sermon was to deal with the modern Magdalene.

Fowler had chosen his subject with the idea of exciting popular interest: his choice was almost perfect. Every soul in Lost Chief was packed into the log chapel long before the services began—every soul, that is, but Inez. Mr. Fowler never had been more eloquent and never, probably, had preached to a more deeply interested congregation. His sermon was a vitriolic arraignment, thinly disguised by Biblical nomenclature, of Inez Rodman.

When Fowler had finished, Young Jeff rose slowly to his feet. Douglas, from his usual place in a rear seat, smiled a little. He liked Young Jeff and liked him best when he rose as now, to do battle for a friend.

"Fowler," said Young Jeff, "I don't like that sermon. We all know who you are driving at, and as for me, you make me very sore. That's a Lost Chief girl and no outsider can come in here and insult her."

"Right! Right!" called several men.

"I didn't expect you to like the sermon," said Mr. Fowler. "I'm through saying pleasant things to you folks. You are going to get straight facts from now on."

"That's as it may be. But you keep your tongue off of Lost Chief women."

"I don't know why you get your back up, Young Jeff!" cried Grandma Brown. "The people of Lost Chief aren't ignorant. They do what they do because they prefer it that way. They know what the world calls their doings. Why be squeamish when Fowler comes in here and just repeats the world's attitude on such doings? Inez is the ruination of our young folks, and we all know it."

"That's right!" called Mrs. Falkner; and Mary Spencer added a low, "Yes! Yes!"

"She's better than any man in the room, right now!" cried Judith. "If you are going to drive her out, you ought to drive the men out."

"Fine!" called Charleton Falkner.

There was a quick guffaw of laughter, during which John Spencer rose.

"Fowler, I don't want to seem to go against my own son, but I want to say that if you try any more sermons like this one, I'm going to head a committee to run you out of the Valley."

"I'd want to be head of that committee myself. Don't be a hog, John!" drawled Charleton.

"That's a good idea!" exclaimed Scott Parsons. "If the preacher says, 'Drive Inez out,' we'll say, 'Out with the preacher!'"

"You're all talking like a parcel of children!" said Grandma Brown.

"Come on!" shouted Scott. "The Pass is open. Let's send him out now!"

Douglas slid to the end of the seat. Fowler stood tensely behind the table, pale, but calm. Peter Knight spoke for the first time.

"I've got an idea. Let's give the sky pilot just one more chance. Let's ask him to preach a sermon next Sunday that we can all feel the right kind of an interest in, or else resign, himself."

Douglas spoke suddenly, "Just what would that kind of a sermon be about, Peter?"

"Well, that's Fowler's job," replied Peter. "He's been at it all his life. He's probably learned by this time the kind of sermons people don't like. I don't want to see him driven out of Lost Chief. I want him to have his chance."

"That's fair enough," exclaimed Charleton. "This isn't such bad fun. Why drive him out while the fun lasts? How about it, John?"

"Fair enough!" agreed John.

"Nothing doing!" cried Scott.

"Now, Scott," warned Charleton amiably, "you run the bull business and you'll have your hands full. We old regulars will handle the preacher."

"Huh!" sniffed Grandma Brown. "Wonderful! 'Old regulars!' Well, don't any of you old regulars forget that Douglas Spencer has grown up and that his brand mark is the same as his grandfather's. I think you all are acting like a parcel of children!"

Nobody spoke for a moment. Douglas watched Mr. Fowler anxiously, but the old preacher appeared to have no weapons with which to meet the occasion. Douglas felt that the situation was getting out of hand. He knew how to meet physical resistance, but he realized that he was only a novice in the sort of strategy that controls by mental superiority alone. He ground his teeth together.

"I'm young yet and I'll learn! See if I don't!" Then he pressed his lips together and waited.

Peter broke the silence.

"How about it, Fowler?"

"I'll agree to nothing. I am through compromising." The old man's eyes were blazing in a white face.

"You're foolish!" exclaimed the postmaster. "But we insist on giving you one more chance. Let's see what you can do for us next Sunday. I move we adjourn." And the meeting broke up with a considerable amount of laughter.

There was very little discussion of the situation in the cabin, that night. Mr. Fowler seemed inexpressibly tired and broken, and Douglas, with a sudden welling of pity to his throat, persuaded him to go to bed. Nor did he, later, interfere with the old preacher's choice of a sermon. There was a deep conviction growing within Douglas that the religious issue of the situation was entirely beyond his own directing.

Peter, however, had no such conviction and he took considerable pains to try to get Fowler to go back to the subject of immortality. But the old man had the bit in his teeth and there was no holding him. The post-office door on Saturday bore the announcement that Sunday's sermon would be on The Sins of Lost Chief. Just below the preacher's placard was an invitation from Jimmy Day for Lost Chief to attend his birthday dance on Saturday evening.

Douglas told of the invitation at the supper table. Mr. Fowler made no comment, but old Johnny said, "I suppose Scott will be taking Judith."

"I don't see why!" exclaimed Douglas suddenly.

"You're all rejus like in the church now. You ain't got the time for womaning. Are you still fond of Jude?" peering at Douglas anxiously.

"I guess you know how I feel about Judith, Johnny," said Doug in a low voice.

"Like I used to feel about her mother?" The old man put a hand on Doug's arm.

Douglas nodded.

"And would it break your heart if Scott or any other man got her?"

Douglas nodded again, then rose. "I think I'll run down to see her a minute. I won't be gone long."

Mr. Fowler smiled. "Good luck to you, boy!"

"Keep your fingers crossed for me," said Doug, slamming out of the door.

Judith kept her finger in "Vanity Fair." "We were all going in a crowd," she said. "You've been cutting us a good deal lately. Why not come in out of the wet and be just one of us?"

"I want to take you, myself," insisted Douglas in a low voice. They were standing in the kitchen, with the door into the living-room closed. "I want you to wear that white dress with the thing-ma-jiggers on the waist and your hair all loose around your face. And I'm going to make love to you every minute."

His eyes were entirely earnest. Judith smiled, then drew a sudden short breath. The color deepened in her cheeks, then retreated.

"All right, Douglas! I'll go with you!" she said.

Douglas looked at her as if he scarcely believed the evidence of his ears. Then he flushed. "Thank you, Judith," he said. "Good-night!" and he bolted into the night.

On Saturday evening, old Johnny was restless. "I have a feeling like I ought to sleep in the chapel," he said.

"Pshaw!" exclaimed Douglas, who was knotting a wonderful new blue neckerchief around his throat. "Everybody will be at the party. You two keep each other company and have the coffee-pot going for me when I get home."

"Charleton ain't going to be at the party," said Johnny. "I heard Jimmy Day deponing at the post-office to-day that Charleton was still off on a trip."

Douglas hesitated and looked at Mr. Fowler. "Go along, Douglas," said the preacher. "We'll bolt the door and no one is going to bother us two old men. You can't sit over me like a mother hen all the time, you know."

"All right," agreed Douglas. "I suppose I do act like an old woman. I'll be home a little after midnight."

The dance was in full swing by the time Douglas and Judith reached the hall, with all the Lost Chief familiars present except Charleton. Inez came with Scott. The vague feeling of uneasiness that Johnny's report had given him did not leave Douglas, not even when he swung into his first dance with Judith. She looked into his eyes mischievously.

"This is nice, Doug, but is it what you call making love?"

Douglas laughed. "Give me time to find words, Jude!" His arm tightened around her, but his face settled with worried lines.

"What's the matter, Douglas?" asked Judith.

"I don't know. I just have the feeling that something is going wrong."

"It would be a foolish feeling if Charleton were here," said Judith. "But ever since poor old Prince—you know—I've had the feeling that Charleton was just waiting for a chance to hurt you."

"Has he said anything to you?" quickly.

"Of course not! Charleton is clever. Well, don't let it spoil your evening, Douglas. You knew you were courting trouble when you took the preacher in."

"And I sure have found it!" exclaimed Douglas with sudden cheerfulness. "If they don't hurt my old sky pilot, I don't care. Come on, Jude, a little more pep, if you please!"

Judith chuckled. "Ah! perhaps this is your idea of love making!"

"You'll recognize it all right when I begin," said Douglas, skilfully steering Jude past his father, who had been visiting the pail in the corner and was swinging Inez in a wild fandango down the center of the room.

Douglas had not the least desire to dance with any one but Judith, and when she danced with other men he wandered uneasily around the room. About eleven o'clock he missed Scott. "Where's Scott gone?" he asked Jimmy.

"O he only stayed for the first dance! I guess he and Inez had a row."

Douglas scowled thoughtfully and wandered over to the phonograph, which Peter was manipulating.

"Where's Charleton, Peter?"

"He went out after a stray stallion he thinks has wandered up on Lost Chief."

Douglas gave Peter a startled glance. "Jimmy Day just said he'd gone into Mountain City."

Peter shrugged his shoulders. "All I know is what Charleton told me last Monday." He slid a new record into the machine.

"Wait a moment!" Douglas put his hand on the starting-lever. "Isn't that the telephone ringing downstairs?"

Peter listened; then nodded.

"I'll answer it!" exclaimed Douglas.

He dashed downstairs and jerked the receiver off the hook. "I want Doug! I gotta depone to Doug," came a breathless old voice over the wire.

"Yes, Johnny, here I am! Where are you?"

"At Mary's. They got the preacher, Doug!"

"Who? Be cool now, Johnny, and help me. Who did it?"

"Two men. They had things over their faces and they were loco and they never—never—" Johnny's voice trailed into an incoherent muttering.

Douglas jammed up the receiver and leaped back up the stairs. He spoke hurriedly to Peter. "They've got the preacher. I can't get sense out of Johnny. You take care of Jude."

He jerked on his mackinaw and darted for the door. Peter followed him into the cold starlight.

"Wait a moment, Doug. You'd better let me give a general alarm."

"Maybe they're all in on it!" Douglas paused with his hand on the pommel of his saddle. Then he gave a hoarse cry, pointing as he did so at Dead Line Peak. "Peter! There's a fire up there!"

He leaped into the saddle and drove the spurs home. The Moose broke into a gallop. A moment later there were shouts on the trail behind him.

"Keep going, old trapper! The birthday party is with you!" roared Jimmy Day.

Douglas did not reply. He saw the flames leap higher as he covered the miles. He felt rage mounting swiftly within him, rage that was akin to what he had felt over the shooting of old Prince, but a thousand times more poignant. But he handled the old Moose coolly. Up the ever-rising trail, between drifted fences, up and up, with the Moose groaning for breath, until the quivering aspens showed clear and black against the leaping flames.

He threw himself from his horse, conscious now of a confusion of voices behind him, of dogs barking, horses groaning and squealing, and coyotes shrieking excitedly from the blue spruce thicket behind the corral. The cabin and the chapel were in full flame. Old Johnny limped up to Douglas. Douglas put a gentle hand on the quivering old shoulder.

"Johnny, when did they come?"

"Right soon."

"You mean after I had gone."

"Yes. They broke the window out. I knew it would happen. This is an awful gregus bad valley."

"Steady now, old boy! Did they hurt the sky pilot?"

"No. They tied him up and took him away. Then I rode down to telephone and they burned it."

"Who was it, Johnny?"

"I don't know but I depone it was Scott and Charleton. They never spoke but I depone it. Like it was Charleton and John tied me to the mule and that was how."

"Steady, Johnny! Which way did they go?"

"I don't know. I was riding down to Mary. I knew Mary—"

"Steady, Johnny." Douglas looked up at the circle of faces.

"Is there anybody friendly enough here, if they knew who did this, to tell me?"

There was no reply, and Peter said, "I don't think if it was Scott and Charleton working together, they'd confide in anybody!"

There was a murmur of assent. Douglas stood, the kind hand still on Johnny's shoulder, drawing long shuddering breaths.

"If they hurt my old sky pilot," he said, "God pity 'em, for I sha'n't. 'Are any of you folks going to help me organize a hunt for him?"

"How do you know the two old fools didn't set fire to it themselves?" demanded John thickly. "The sky pilot was in bad and that would be a good way out."

Douglas swung himself up on the Moose. In the vivid light his lips were twisted contemptuously.

"Glad to help you out personally any way, Doug!" exclaimed Jimmy Day. "But you'd better let the sky pilot go. They ain't going to hurt him. You've been the church buildingest damn fool in the Rockies."

"Speak for yourself, Jimmy!" cried Peter. "I'm with you, Doug."

"And so am I!" exclaimed Judith. "This is the rottenest trick ever sprung in Lost Chief!"

"You will not stir a step after the preacher, miss!" roared John.

Douglas stood in the stirrups facing his old friends and neighbors. But words failed him. He spurred the Moose out onto the trail.

Peter urged his horse up beside the Moose. "Where are you heading for, Doug? You mustn't go off half-cocked."

"I'm going down to Inez' place and see if I can sweat the truth out of her."

"It's a slim chance!"

"I don't think so! It's too dark to follow tracks now, and you can bet they've covered themselves well, anyhow. I have a feeling that Inez knows. She must have been willing to murder the sky pilot after his sermon. If we don't get anything out of her by dawn, we'll get Frank Day and start. I know I can count on him."

"Well, perhaps you're right. Inez has been venomous about this and I can't say that I blame her. Easy now, Doug. The Moose is about all in."

Douglas grunted and the way to Inez' house was covered in silence. Douglas had no sense of confusion, nor of defeat. He was angry, but with his anger was a lust for battle and an exultation in the opportunity for it that smacked almost of joy. I'll get him back, he told himself, and I'll rebuild the chapel and I'll punish Charleton and Scott. Maybe I am nothing but a rancher a thousand miles from anywhere but no old crusader ever fought for the grail harder than I'm going to fight for my little old sky pilot. And if they hurt him—! Old Moose groaned as Douglas involuntarily thrust the spurs home.

There was a light in the kitchen of the Rodman ranch house. Douglas banged on the door, and when Inez called, he strode in, followed by Peter. Inez was sitting before the stove, on which a coffee-pot simmered. Scott Parsons stood beside the fire, coffee-cup in hand. Douglas helped himself to a chair and Peter imitated him.

"You folks didn't come up to my fire," said Doug.

Inez, who had followed his movements intently, smiled sardonically. "Did you expect either of us?"

"Not exactly. I didn't expect to see Scott here, either. It was rumored that you'd had a quarrel and that was why you left the party early."

Inez shrugged her shoulders. "Where's Judith?"

"She's probably helping old Johnny up at my place. There didn't seem to be anybody else likely to stay, after the fireworks."

"And what are you and Peter doing down here at a time like this?" asked Inez, looking at the postmaster as she spoke.

"I was going to get you to tell me what Scott and Charleton had told you about this partnership affair of theirs. But as long as Scott is here, I'll just sweat it out of him."

Scott laughed.

"What makes you think I know anything about it?"

"You have cause to hate the preacher more than any one," replied Douglas simply.

Inez' chin came up proudly. "I'm glad you realize that!" she exclaimed.

"But it's not exactly evidence," said Scott suddenly, "that Charleton and I had anything to do with the affair."

"No, nor, if they did put over the job, that I knew about it," added Inez.

"Which job do you refer to?" asked Peter.

"Running the preacher," replied Inez.

"But how did you happen to know he had been run?" Peter's eyes were half shut. "You came home early and didn't go up to the fire."

Inez bit her lip. Peter smiled grimly, his long, sallow face wearier than ever in the lamplight. "You aren't the kind to get away with a plot, Inez. Leave that to Charleton."

"No reason why some one couldn't have telephoned, is there?" demanded Scott.

"No reason at all," replied Peter, "except that Inez' phone has been out of order for a week and I promised to come up to-morrow and fix it for her."

"I didn't think," said Douglas, "that you were the kind to get mixed up in a rough deal like this, Inez. I'll admit that Fowler's sermon was raw and all that, but still you are no hand to blink facts. Didn't you have it coming to you?"

Inez' lip twitched. She looked from one man to the other, finally focussing on Peter.

"Did I?" she asked.

"Yes, you did," he answered. "You've got to lay the blame finally on the women. Otherwise civilization would cease."

"Oh, forget it!" growled Scott. "What are you dragging Inez in on this for? She's always been a good friend to you, Peter."

"I like Inez," said Peter slowly, "but no one is a good friend of mine who is bucking against Douglas in this stunt he's at himself. Douglas is easily the coming man of this valley and if I'm not mistaken, of this State, and I'm back of him, boots, spurs and saddle."

Douglas flushed and twisted uneasily in his chair.

Scott sneered, inaudibly. Inez stared at Douglas, nostrils quivering slightly. "I've always admired Doug," she spoke coolly, "but it wasn't playing the game for him to let the preacher attack me and I'll never forgive him for it."

"I'll never ask you to!" exclaimed Douglas cheerfully. "And I'm not going to start a debate with you. I know that Charleton and Scott put over this deal and that you knew about it."

"I'm going to make just one statement." Inez was looking again at Peter. "I think whoever set fire to your place, Douglas, was a fool and a crook."

Scott buttoned up his mackinaw. "Well, I'll be riding. I'm a long way from home."

Douglas stretched his right arm along the table. His six-shooter was in his hand. "Don't hurry away, old-timer! I want to talk to you."

Scott stood rigidly, a forefinger in a buttonhole. "Don't get funny, Doug. This ain't a sheep-herder's war."

"No, it's more serious than that," agreed Douglas. "You don't get the idea, Scott. You can't run the preacher out of the Valley, because I shall keep bringing him back. You can't burn down my chapel, because I shall keep building it up. Now, you tell me what you know about this man, because I don't calculate to let you eat, drink, or sleep until you do tell."

"You must think I'm a tenderfoot! Inez, you open that door into the yard."

"Peter, you engage Inez' attention, will you?" asked Douglas in his gentle voice. "Now then, Scott, where is Fowler?"

Peter moved his chair over beside Inez. Scott made a wry face.

"I ain't his herder. That's your job. But you've sure lost him on the range, Doug. A religious round-up ain't what you thought it was, huh?"

"Just keep both hands in the buttonholes. That's right, Scott. Now when you get ready to tell daddy all your little sins, speak right up."

"Look here, Doug, don't you start any shooting in my house. I never have had any trouble here and I'm not going to begin now. You'll never get anything out of Scott, this way. You let him go."

Peter took Inez' hand. "My dear girl, you'd better keep out of this. Douglas is a right nervous rider, to-night."

Inez attempted to free her hand. Peter smiled. "You can't be my friend and Scott's too, you know."

"I don't want to be your friend!" panted Inez.

"Don't you?" asked Peter, looking at her through half-closed eyes. "Why not, Inez?"

Douglas, intrigued in spite of himself by this half-whispered conversation, glanced toward Inez. Instantly, Scott thrust the table against him and leaped toward the door. But Doug thrust out a spurred boot and the two young riders went down among the table legs. Inez twisted in Peter's grasp, but he pinioned both of her hands and watched the struggle anxiously. Suddenly he saw Douglas drive his knee violently into Scott's groin. Scott groaned and went limp. Douglas got to his knees and tied Scott's hands together with his own neckerchief. Then he dragged Scott to a sitting position against the wall and again covered him with his gun. Slowly the agony receded from Scott's face.

"Where's the preacher?" demanded Douglas.

Scott did not answer.

"I'm going to stay here till dawn," said Doug. "If you don't see fit to answer by then, you'll start on the hunt with me. Think it over."

Peter, both of Inez' wrists in one of his long, powerful hands, put fresh wood on the fire, then sat down again. Inez leaned against him, breathing unevenly. For a long time, no one spoke. Douglas, the sense of exultation still upon him, lighted cigarette after cigarette and waited patiently. How long a time went by he did not trouble himself to note, though he believed dawn could not be far distant.

The silence was broken by the galloping of a horse up to the door. A moment later, Mary Spencer burst into the kitchen. She was wind-blown and wild-eyed. Her coat was open. Her head was bare.

"Is Judith here?" she cried, without appearing to observe the peculiar postures of the inmates of the kitchen.

"No!" exclaimed Inez. "What's happened?"

Douglas looked at his mother with startled eyes. "I don't know!" cried Mary, bursting into tears.

Douglas tore down the roller-towel and tossed it to Peter.

"Tie up Scott's ankles. Inez won't bother!"

Inez, indeed, was giving no heed to the men. She ran over to Mary. "For heaven's sake, what's happened?"

Mary wiped her eyes and fought to speak calmly. "Up at the fire she insisted that she was going out to help find the preacher. John had been drinking and he argued with her, and followed her down the trail. They quarrel so much I didn't think anything of it. I stayed a long while up at the fire with the others. Then I went home. I noticed when I turned old Beauty into the corral that it was empty, and I was surprised. I hadn't thought Judith would start out till daylight. I rushed into the house. The living-room table had been tipped over and the chairs pulled round. I telephoned everywhere, but nobody had seen her. And this 'phone wouldn't answer. Old Johnny came down and he rode toward the post-office and I came here."

Douglas started for the door.

"Where are you going?" asked Peter.

"After Judith!"

"What about Scott and the preacher?"

Douglas turned to face the others, his lips white, his eyes burning. "What do I care about them, when Judith is in question!"

"You go ahead, Doug!" cried Inez. "Don't wait for anything. Judith's been talking about running away for years, but she never planned to go off in the winter, I can tell you that."

"John had been drinking, you must remember," half-sobbed Mary. "He's always so ugly then."

Douglas rushed out of the door. Peter followed him. "I'm going up to the old ranch and see if I can pick up their trail. I need another horse. My corral is cleared out and Dad's is too. But I—O, Peter!" Douglas' voice broke.

"Keep your nerve up, Douglas. I've got a couple of horses in fair condition down at my place. We'll ride there after we look over things at your father's ranch."

They hardly had cleared the corral when Mary overtook them. She was still crying, but except for her sobs they rode in a heavy silence to the ranch house.

Old Johnny was gone. They found a curious note on the kitchen table. "Going after Jud for Douglas. J.B."

"She's started for Mountain City, I'm certain," said Mary. "She's been terribly uneasy ever since Doug left home, always saying a girl had no chance to make anything of herself here. It would be exactly like her to lose her temper and start off, hard pelt on that hundred-mile ride with no preparations at all."

"That's not what worries me," said Peter. "It's John when he's drunk."

"It's light enough to start!" exclaimed Douglas. "Mother, you give us some breakfast. Let's roll up some blankets and take some grub and get gone, Peter."

In little more than a half-hour they were on the trail. And all the exultation which had carried Douglas through the night had fled, leaving him with the sense of impending calamity that had spoiled the dance for him. And he knew now that it had been a well-founded prescience. A door had closed behind him, forever, and, with horror in his heart, he was facing a void. For something had gone wrong with Judith. And Judith was his life.



CHAPTER XVI

THE TRAIL OVER THE PASS

"Some riders' spurs are the lightest when their hearts are the heaviest."

—The Moose.

It was a clear day, but in the increasing light, white clouds could be seen whirling from the crest of Lost Chief.

"Lost Chief is making snow, but we won't get it before evening," said Peter, as they dismounted at the post-office corral. "Now we'll just outfit for a couple of days. I'm believing we'll overtake one or both before night, but you can't tell. If Jude was crazy enough to run away in zero weather, she's crazy enough to have taken any kind of a risk and to be paying for it."

Douglas went swiftly and silently to work. The sun was just pushing over the Indian Range when, each leading a pack-horse, they crossed Lost Chief Creek and started up the long climb to the Pass. Here the wind was rising and dry snow sifted constantly across the trail, obliterating any trace of hoofs that might have been there. It was slow going, too, for there had been much snow on the Pass and the drifts were frequent and deep. Douglas was extremely sparing of his mount. Nothing that he could do should interfere with his efficiency in the search, and although his mad desire bade him rowell the straining brute, he rode light of heel, resting at frequent enough intervals to satisfy even Peter's large ideas of what was owing to a horse.

It was not until they were half-way to the summit, pushing between towering jade green walls, where the wind was excluded, that Douglas suddenly pulled up. The snow was level and hard-packed. There were hoof and wheel marks, leading south. Friday's mail stage. A number of hoof marks leading north. The two men dismounted and for many minutes studied these.

"Here!" exclaimed Peter at last. "Four horses in a walk, up to this point. Here, they break into a trot; and this is old Johnny on Jingo, and that is the Wolf Cub.

"Easy, Doug! Don't kill the horses. It's only a guess you are following."

Douglas grunted impatiently and set his horse, Justus, to the trot. At the summit, still following trail, they pulled up to breathe the horses, then plunged downward. Half through the afternoon they followed the hoof marks. The biting wind rose and the sun warmed their backs as they crested the ridges. The wind fell and the sun darkened as they dropped into the valleys. Eagles on the hunt hung watchfully in the sky. Coyotes now and again sneaked across the trail before them. The two men threshed their arms across their chests or dropped their aching feet from the stirrups, and still the hoof marks of five horses led on before them.

Their shadows had grown long and blue-black on the trail before them when suddenly Douglas pulled Justus up, and Peter pushed up beside him. About a quarter of a mile farther on lay the half-way house. They were crossing a broad, flat valley into which the trail dipped lazily. Just before them, the tracks of two horses and a dog led sharply to the left and disappeared. Some one had fallen. There was a confusion of tracks, then a two-horse trail led on toward the half-way house. Without a word, they put their horses to a gallop that did not ease until they pulled in at the little log corral, of the half-way house. There were two horses, John's and old Johnny's, in the shed.

Crumpled on the doorstep was old Johnny, Doug's shot-gun across his knees, at first glance, sound asleep. It was bitter cold. Douglas and Peter pounded their numbed fingers, then examined the little old cowman. He was, indeed, asleep, but his was the sleep that knows no waking.

"I thought he knew better than this," said Douglas, pitifully.

"He hadn't any outside clothes on." Peter fingered the cotton jumper. "Had a sudden thought and went off as crazy as Jude. Let's lift him into the house."

They opened the door. On the floor beside the stove lay John, his right leg bloody. They laid old Johnny carefully against the wall. Douglas stood rigidly staring at his father. Peter hurriedly lifted the wounded man's hands, then forced some whiskey down his throat.

"Start a fire, Doug!" he ordered.

Douglas did not stir. He stood, blue eyes haggard, cheeks frost-burned, staring at his father. John opened his eyes.

"Get my right boot off, for God's sake!" he said faintly.

"Wait!" said Douglas peremptorily, when Peter would have obeyed. "Give him some more whiskey so I can hear the story and be off. Those were Judith's tracks back, there."

"The pain is killing me!" protested John.

"Where is Judith? Have you hurt her?" demanded Doug.

Peter applied his flask again to John's mouth. John drank, then groaned. "I was drunk. Awful drunk. If Doug hadn't been so crazy about the preacher he'd have seen that. Jude went down to the house to get some warm things while she hunted for the preacher. I followed her. The house was warm and got me even more fuddled than I was. I don't know what I said but she came at me like a wild cat. Then she ran out of the house and me after her. I never touched her. I never saw such riding. I could just keep her in sight, and it wasn't till daylight that I came up to her in this valley. After I sobered up I kept yelling at her, trying to explain. But she didn't even turn her head. Then I rode my horse round in front of her and she turned that devilish little wild mare loose on me, kicking and biting my horse like a stallion. In the middle of the mix-up, that blank old fool of a Johnny gallops up, half-dressed and shooting in every direction. Jude she takes off up the valley and Johnny gave me this leg when I tried to follow. I got up here, him following me, and the fool wouldn't help me. Just sat guard outside the door. I kept telling him he'd freeze to death. He kept saying he was saving Jude for Douglas." John ended with another groan.

Douglas stood clenching and unclenching his gloved hands. Suddenly he turned on his heel. "Come on, Peter."

"We can't leave your father this way, Doug."

"Come on, I tell you!" Doug's low voice was as hard as his eyes.

"Wait!" cried Peter.

"Wait! Wait! While Judith freezes to death too!" exclaimed Douglas.

"She couldn't freeze to death. She's too mad!" groaned John.

"An hour won't make any difference," urged Peter. "I guess Jude had this thing planned out."

"Planned!" Douglas' blue eyes burned. "She's gone off her head with anger and disgust and she doesn't care where she goes as long as she's rid of him. I know Jude!"

"You don't know Jude!" contradicted Peter. "Help me to lift John to the bunk. He's gat to be taken care of."

Douglas turned on his heel, took a quilt from the bunk and laid it over old Johnny, gray and silent against the wall. Then without a word, he lifted the door-latch.

"Don't forget that this is your father after all."

"But I have forgotten!" returned Douglas clearly.

"Stop that kind of talk," said Peter sharply, "and help me get his boot off!"

Douglas gave Peter a long stare of resentment; then, without a word, he rushed out of the cabin. He watered the horses, mounted Justus, and took the lead rope of his pack-animal, putting both horses to the gallop. When he reached the point where Judith had left the main trail he turned and followed her tracks, which were rapidly drifting over with snow.

The whole world was white. Lifting from the valley to the right, little hills rolled over into one another like foaming billows. Beyond these were distant ranges blue, white, and gold. Judith's trail led along the base of the little hills into a grove of Lebanon cedars, gnarled and wind-distorted. There was little snow among the trees and so for a while the trail was lost. But when the cedars opened out on a circular mesa where the snow was taking on the saffron tints of the evening sky, he picked it up again.

The mesa ended abruptly in a drifted mountain, opalescent pink from its foot to its cone-shaped head. The snow on the mesa was not deep, and Douglas realized that Judith had followed an old trapper's trail that worked south toward Lost Chief Peak.

By the time Doug reached the foot of the mountain it was so dark that he barely could discern that Judith had circled to the right, around the base of the peak. There would be a moon a little later. Douglas dismounted in the shelter of a huge rock, cut down a small cedar, and made himself a fire and cooked some coffee. And he fed the horses.

He sat for an hour over the fire, waiting for the moon. He was not conscious of weariness. He was not thinking. It was as if there had been no burning of his ranch, no preacher, no old Johnny. His whole mind was focussed on finding Judith. On finding her and somehow ending the intolerable uncertainty and longing which he had endured for so many years.

The threatened snow thus far had held off. If the clear weather would hold for another twelve hours, he was sure that he could overtake her. He was impatient of delay and watched restlessly for the moon. Shortly after seven o'clock it sailed over the mountain, flooding the world with a light so intense and pure that the unbelievable colors of the daytime returned like prismatic ghosts.

Douglas mounted and slowly and carefully followed the trail around the mountain. He found the spot where Judith had made a fire. He paused over a drift where one of her horses had floundered. He urged his tired horses to a trot where Judith had followed a beaten coyote trail along a hidden brook. Hours of this, and then—a thickening cloud across the moon and a sudden thickening blast of snow in his face. He had been fearing this all day, yet the moon had risen so clearly that his fears had been lulled. He pushed on as long as he could distinguish the trail. Then, with a groan, he pulled up beside a clump of bushes. The horses sighed gratefully. Justus' shoulders were quivering with fatigue.

Douglas unsaddled the horses and hobbled them; then he shoveled snow away from beneath some of the bushes and made a rough shelter over the open space with a blanket. He built a fire, crept under his rude canopy, and rolled himself in many blankets. He was very, very tired, and after a time he dropped miles deep into slumber.

It was gray dawn when he awoke and he was snug beneath a foot of snow that had blown over his bed-covering. He crawled out stiffly and made a fire. Then he fed the horses and ate his breakfast, examining the landscape as he did so.

Lost Chief Range rose to the left. To the right lay a broad mesa cut by impassable canyons. Far to the south and to the right lifted Black Devil Range, forming, with Lost Chief, a deep valley, the valley in which Elijah Nelson had settled. From Douglas' camp, the valley was almost inaccessible: almost, but not quite. Just under the crest of Black Devil Peak lay a pass. If this could be crossed one dropped southward into a cup-shaped valley called Johnson's Basin. Beyond the basin a lesser pass into sheep country, and thence still south to the railroad and the whole wide world.

Black Devil Pass was used in summer but only by seasoned hunters and cattle-men. In winter, it was closed by snow and ice. Yet now, Douglas was convinced that, unless big snows had stopped her, Judith was attempting that perilous passage. She was by now cooled down; she would not turn back. Pride, resentment, restlessness, and that virile love of adventure which only increased as she grew older, would urge her on and on. And to cross Black Devil Pass in winter was a feat which even Charleton would refuse to undertake. Yet, he did not believe that Judith would attempt such a journey without carefully outfitting. And where could she have done this? Had she foreseen her flight and cached food and fodder? Douglas shrugged this suggestion aside as highly improbable. But she could have gone into Mormon Valley for supplies. It was possible to reach Black Devil Pass from the upper end of Mormon Valley, possible in summer at least. Possible also to reach the Pass by swinging around to the right of the Black Devil Range.

Douglas, with a grim tightening of his lips, looked over his supplies. Bacon, coffee, flour, matches; enough for a week if eked out by cottontails and porcupines. But the horses had only a day's fodder. He remade the pack, mounted and pushed on through the snows, which grew deeper as the elevation increased.

On either hand, the two ranges flung mountain beyond mountain, in shades of jade, creviced by deep blue snow. The tiny, weary cavalcade wound on and on with not a trace of Judith to lighten the way. It was noon when Douglas reached the forest which choked the end of Mormon Valley. He knew the spot. Nature first had covered the floor of the passage with boulders. Between the boulders, she had planted the pine-trees. The pine had grown thick and tall and had waxed old and fallen, and other pines had grown above the dead tree-trunks. In summer, if extreme care and patience were used, a horse could be led through this chaos. In winter, deep-blanketed with snow—!

Douglas drew up before the pines and dismounted. The snow was waist-deep. Very slowly, he began to pick a winding, intricate path between the trees. He fell many times but he finally emerged into the smoother floor of the valley. Then he turned and followed his own trail back, kicking and pounding the snow to make better footing for the horses. He took Justus' reins and led him into the trail.

Horses hate the snow. These shied and balked, stood trembling and uncertain, shook their heads and kicked, and Justus nipped at Doug's shoulder with ugly, yellow teeth. But he pulled them on and by mid-afternoon they were in the open valley with snow not above the animals' knees. Gradually the Mormon buck fences appeared, and, just at dusk, a twinkling light.